iPod nano and limewire?

macrumors newbie

My friend has some music that she got from limewire a while ago and it keeps crashing her new ipod nano. She took it in to the apple store and they told her that music from file sharing sites doesn't work with the nano. I read somewhere that apple had made the firmware on the nano incompatible with limewire, etc. Is this confirmed? Is there a way around this?

Retired

macrumors regular

That "Limewire music" has most likely been ripped from a CD by just some guy with a program like iTunes or FreeRip. There's nothing that makes it any different from music you have ripped yourself from your own CDs, so I can't see how Apple could stop iPods from playing music downloaded from Limewire.

Of course there's a chance that the file is corrupted or in a format that iTunes/iPod has a hard time understanding and that is why it doesn't work. In any case, Apple isn't blocking people from listening to "Limewire music". It just isn't possible without annoying people who rip music from their CDs legimately.

thread startermacrumors newbie

Yes....I don't steal music.....I am a musician and I hate that too. My friend doesn't anymore, but she still has some old mp3s that she listens to sometimes. The apple guy really did just tell her that downloaded mp3s would not work well with the nano, and it's true. As soon as she took all those mp3s off the nano all her crashing/skipping/general instability problems were gone. Very strange.....I don't understand what limewire could possibly have done to the songs to make them not work in the same way that mp3s from itunes do.

macrumors 603

It has nothing to do with what "limewire" did to the songs, instead some/one/all of her ripped songs were corrupted at some point. This is what caused the nano to get upset. If they were ripped correctly from the start and preserved that way, they would never cause a problem with her nano.

thread startermacrumors newbie

It's just weird that the mp3s will work on other ipods and on itunes, just not on the nano. Seems more like a tactic than a bug if you ask me.....

Are we moving towards the reality that only mp3s that came from itunes will work with ipods? Is apple assuming that mp3s that came from anywhere else are stolen? That is a bad precedent if you ask me.....

macrumors G5

My friend has some music that she got from limewire a while ago and it keeps crashing her new ipod nano. She took it in to the apple store and they told her that music from file sharing sites doesn't work with the nano. I read somewhere that apple had made the firmware on the nano incompatible with limewire, etc. Is this confirmed? Is there a way around this?

Click to expand...

You use Limewire to download files. In the substantial majority of all cases, these files will be copyrighted material that is downloaded without permission of the copyright owner, in other words, illegal. You should care whether what you download is legal or illegal, the iPod Nano doesn't.

Music files that you download from Limewire can be in correct MP3 or AAC format; in that case the iPod Nano will play them. They can be in some Microsoft proprietary format that the iPod Nano will not play; they may be corrupted, in which case the iPod won't play them, they can be in miserable quality. Much of what can be found on Limewire is crap, and some is crap that is unplayable on an iPod. So if your friend has downloaded music from Limewire that crashes her iPod, then this is not because of something that Apple has done deliberately (if the iPod showed a message "Stolen music - this song cannot be played", that would be deliberate. Crashing is not deliberate), but probably because someone created the music with a crappy encoder, or damaged the files somehow.

macrumors 6502a

It's just weird that the mp3s will work on other ipods and on itunes, just not on the nano. Seems more like a tactic than a bug if you ask me.....

Are we moving towards the reality that only mp3s that came from itunes will work with ipods? Is apple assuming that mp3s that came from anywhere else are stolen? That is a bad precedent if you ask me.....

Click to expand...

As everyone here has stated, there is nothing different with the music. It is true that the music you purchase off of iTunes is different that the music you are stealing off of Limewire. Itunes sends Protected AAC files with are actually MP4's, if I am not mistaken (someone correct me if that is wrong).

Regardless, this is not related to your problem otherwise your claim would be "My friend's nano only plays music bought on iTunes." The idea that an iPod only plays some non-AAC files and skips others is ridiculous.

The only explanation for this would be a corrupt song which has already been mentioned. While it was wrong for the Apple representative to lie to you, you probably had it coming. If you (or your friend) went into the store sounding like you do here, I probably would have told you the same thing. This... a) gets you to stop using limewire and b) is bs a person such as yourself would believe.

Go buy the songs and be happy. You dont seem to be rationally listening to anyone's advice. If you ask a question and get the same answer multiple times, it is not smart to discredit it. If you just do things the legal way, you will have less problems.

ps - I am expecting some sort of 'its not me, its my friend' response. Whatever. You posted the problem, expect a response as if you had the problem. I am not going to edit my reply to change 'you' to 'your friend' ...if it even is a friend.

thread startermacrumors newbie

Go buy the songs and be happy. You dont seem to be rationally listening to anyone's advice. If you ask a question and get the same answer multiple times, it is not smart to discredit it. If you just do things the legal way, you will have less problems.

Click to expand...

Hey man, I'm not trying to discredit anything. I'm simply bringing up ideas and voicing them. There is nothing wrong with that, is there? Sheesh.

I never was saying that I don't believe the corrupt mp3 idea....I think that makes a lot of sense. I was only asking why all of a sudden these corrupt mp3s are causing problems when they've never caused problems on mp3 players before. Most software starts off less tolerant to corruption, so seeing this crop up now makes me think that there are other forces behind it than just bad coding. Forces that I don't like, since it is breaking little things like this that lead to other (legitimate) sources of mp3s not functioning correctly. Do you remember the cds that would play on your cd player and not on your computer? I just don't want to see little "bugs" like this be part of some new RIAA tactic since it will hinder legit uses of mp3s that did not come from itunes (purchased or ripped from a cd).

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